On the eve of the winter solstice festival at the Lin family's old house in Donghai, Su Qing adjusted the slit of her cheongsam for the third time in front of the mirror. The collar embroidered with freesia kept sliding down, revealing the corner of the coral fleece pajamas she hadn't changed into. "I should have worn a sweatshirt earlier." She muttered to the air, her fingertips running over the crooked wooden dragon on the dressing table - Zhou Mingxuan's newly carved "Wife-Protecting Dragon", with a red rope wrapped around its tail as a belt.
"Don't bother," Lin Aotian pushed the door open, wearing a dragon-patterned brooch left by his mother on his suit vest, but laughed when he saw her stumbling and stepping on the hem of her cheongsam, "If the elders dare to find fault, I'll say this is a new-style clan costume." He squatted down to tie the ribbon for her, his fingertips touching the old scar on her ankle, which was caused by her falling when she helped him move books in college.
The bronze bell in the meeting room struck nine times, and the thirty-six elders were already sitting upright. When Su Qing came in with the newly baked "Winter Solstice Dragon Cake", the steam from the steamer blurred the glasses of the elder, revealing the surprised look behind the lenses - the dragon cake was crookedly lying on the celadon plate, the claws were a mess, but there was a complete sweet-scented osmanthus candied fruit embedded in the eyes.
"Miss Su, this is..." The third elder's words were stuck in his throat, staring at the burn marks on the tail of the dragon cake.
"I received a call from Zhou Mingxuan while it was baking," Su Qing stuck out her tongue and pushed the plate to the center of the long table, "He said that the financial system of Zhou Group collapsed again, and the result was..." She pointed to the crack in the dragon's mouth, "It turned into a yawning dragon."
The elders' coughs were accompanied by chuckles. The elder suddenly reached out and picked up a piece of burnt tail with silver chopsticks: "It's crispy and fragrant, more interesting than the stereotyped ones of previous years." He looked at the broken jade bracelet on Lin Aotian's wrist, which was still stained with glutinous rice flour from helping Su Qing knead dough this morning, "Although the clan rules are strict, they shouldn't freeze people's hearts."
When the ceremony reached the "offering silk" stage, the silk Su Qing was holding was suddenly blown up by the wind and scattered on the ground. She hurried to pick it up, but knocked over the celadon bowl on the incense table. The broken porcelain pieces scratched the back of Lin Aotian's hand, and blood dripped on the dragon pattern of the silk, which coincided with the blood mark in her mother's diary.
"Are you okay?" She took out the Band-Aid she brought with her, which was a cartoon version with a freesia pattern. "I should have brought Zhou Mingxuan to serve as a soldier. He is very fast at opening packages."
Lin Aotian looked at the Band-Aid she put on crookedly in a panic, and suddenly remembered that when he was slashed in the alley at the age of sixteen, she also bandaged him while crying. When the cotton swab dipped in iodine hurt the wound, she would blow and say "It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt." At this moment, the sandalwood in the meeting room mixed with the milk fragrance on her body, making the solemn ceremony more worldly.
In the kitchen of the old house late at night, Su Qing sighed at the celadon bowl that was broken into three pieces. Lin Aotian pushed the door open and came in, holding a bubble tea from Zhou Group: "Zhou Mingxuan said that a broken bowl is called 'peace every year' in Feng Shui." He shook the milk tea, and the pearls hit the bottom of the cup with a muffled sound, "Besides, this bowl was stolen by me when I was a child to serve you sweet and sour pork ribs." Su Qing suddenly laughed out loud, remembering that when he climbed over the wall into the girls' dormitory in high school, he used the ancestral celadon bowl to serve homemade sweet and sour pork ribs, and was caught on the spot by the dormitory aunt. "Later, your second uncle punished you to kneel in the ancestral hall," she touched the edge of the broken bowl, "I secretly passed you osmanthus cake through the dog hole, do you remember?"
"Of course I don't remember," Lin Aotian suddenly leaned in, his nose almost touching her trembling eyelashes, "The osmanthus cake you passed in fell on the ground and was covered with moss, and I pretended to say it was delicious." He suddenly took out a small box, which contained a broken bowl glued together with gold wire, and the broken part of the dragon pattern was pieced into a freesia, "Chen Mo found a master in Jingdezhen, who said this is called 'Kintsugi restoration'."
Su Qing's eyes lit up, and the broken bowl glowed warmly under the light, just like the cargo ship drawn in her mother's diary. The phone vibrated in the pocket of the apron. Zhou Mingxuan sent a message with a selfie attached: he squatted in front of the Zhou Group server with a messy hair. The screen was full of messy codes, and the note read "Fixed! But it seems that the financial system has been changed to a game interface?"
"Zhou Mingxuan is still so unreliable." Su Qing smiled and shook her head, and suddenly pointed out the window, "Look! It's snowing."
The green tiles of the old house were covered with a thin layer of snow. The moonlight shone on the plaque of "Long Yu Tang", and the dragon relief was looming in the snow. Lin Aotian looked at the snowflakes falling in Su Qing's hair, and suddenly remembered what his mother said before she died: "The real dragon's eyes can see the wind and snow in the world, and can also hold the warmth of the palm."
At the clan banquet after the ceremony, Su Qing held the improved version of the dragon cake to toast everyone one by one, and the crooked dragon-shaped cake became a hot commodity. The elder ate her version with cream and suddenly said, "If Miss Su is willing, you will be responsible for the cakes for the festival next year?"
"Okay!" Su Qing's eyes lit up, "I also want to try the chocolate dragon cake, with the black tea Zhou Mingxuan brought from London..."
Lin Aotian looked at her dancing and suddenly felt that the clan rules that were regarded as the norm could also produce gentle wrinkles in front of her apron with cream stains. The phone vibrated, and Chen Mo sent a message: "The remnants of Xingyao Capital have completely withdrawn from the market. Before leaving, they sent a gift - the remaining pages of your mother's logbook."
The handwriting on the remaining pages was blurred, but the two words "Aotian" could be recognized. There was a small boat painted next to it, with two people standing on the boat, and a freesia flag on the bow. He suddenly chuckled and put the remaining pages into his mother's logbook, where Su Qing's biscuit crumbs, Zhou Mingxuan's wood carving shavings, and countless fragments with the warmth of life were still lying.
The snow was getting heavier, and Su Qing suddenly pulled his hand and ran to the yard, leaving crooked footprints on the snow. "Let's make a dragon!" She rolled a snowball, her nose red from the cold, "The dragon head should wear a freesia hairpin, and the dragon claws should hold boba milk tea!"
Lin Aotian looked at the snowflakes on her eyelashes, and suddenly realized that the so-called Longyu business was never a cold rule engraved on the family tree, but like this moment, on a snowy night, accompanying his lover to make a crooked snow dragon, letting her step on his suit pants full of snow prints, and listening to her chattering about the new flavor of cake to be baked tomorrow.
When the first Kongming lantern rose into the night sky, Su Qing suddenly pointed at the words on the lantern and laughed out loud - I don't know when Lin Aotian drew a little dragon wearing an apron on the lantern, holding a burnt biscuit in his claws, and "Life is worth it" was written next to it. Snow fell on the wings of the wooden dragon, but it couldn't melt the warmth reflected in its eyes.